Network Norwich & Norfolk : Love is the strongest message we have

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	Charlotte (Guest)	26/11/2007, 17:05
James, another very beautiful and helpful piece of writing. Praise God for your talents. Ive just reread your column about why christianity is the right religion and I think it is one of the most brilliantly constructed articles that I have ever read. But there is one thing that I dont understand about how we can tell others that it is right. I know that grace is what separates christianity from other religions but god’s grace must be present in all people of all faiths so how do I convince my friends of other faiths that they have to change faiths and become christians and those who think that all religions are equally valid? Thank you James for your wisdom and your support. Charlotte
	James Knight (Guest)	27/11/2007, 11:22
Dear Charlotte, Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. It is certainly true that God’s grace is present everywhere, both in that which we understand and in that which we, as yet, do not. Therefore our message should be one of love and grace too. The best way to help your friends is to keep telling them about Jesus; keep emphasising the wonderful thing that He has done for them and how much He loves them and wants a relationship with them. In one sense, the argument about religion only becomes more complicated when the attention is not on Christ. Many people seem to think that there are a multitude of religions from which one has to make a choice, but if our decision making is in accordance with the laws of rationality, there are, I would say, only two feasible choices - Christianity or Hinduism. Islam (along with its superfluous subsidiaries) is only the most propagated of the Christian heresies (of which there are many), and Buddhism (along with its many subsidiaries) is only the most propagated of the Hindu heresies or digressions (of which there are many). Authentic Paganism has long since ceased to exist. All that pertains to truth in Judaism, Greek Philosophy and Tribal beliefs, survives in Christianity. There are, in fact, only two which we need to consider - the rest are superfluous; traditional in many cases, but superfluous. We may think of belief systems as we do deodorants - we can separate them into perfumed and unperfumed. By perfumed, I mean those which have rituals, traditions and cultural attachments. Many of these are found in Africa, South America and in the least oppressive parts of Asia. By unperfumed I mean those which belong in the domain of moral analysis, philosophical analysis, and the universal search for truth and meaning. Now if one religion is going to claim itself to be the right one, it must be both perfumed and unperfumed; that is to say - the true God must have both the scented and the unscented; He must be accessible, His revelations must be explicable and receivable in the cognisance of everyone, irrespective of their background, their nationality, their status, their heredity, and their physical and mental abilities. And the only religion to fulfil such standards upon which a judgement can be made is Christianity. The Hindu religion fulfils only part of it. The scented factor of tradition and inculcation, and the unscented factor of Brahman and the pantheistic Hindu trinity (plus other gods) builds a wall between what philosophy and the sciences tell us, and what history and psychology tell us. Christianity is the only religion that breaks down the wall; it takes an evil man and tells Him that if accepts the living God he can have salvation and be washed and cleansed. It tells an African tribesman, whose mind has been inculcated with spurious local customs about sea gods and animal worshipping, and it tells him to cast his load on Jesus Christ. It tells an oppressed woman in Iran or North Korea or Syria, whose distressed mind has been impressed upon with fanatical teaching, that the situation is not hopeless - that Christ is the way, the truth and the life - that hope can be found in Him. It tells lost souls scattered all over the world from Devon to Darfur, from South Yemen to South Korea, from East Brooklyn to East Timor, that their lives can have direction and meaning because the one and only God, the Creator of the universe loves us enough to be born a man so that He could die on the cross to bring us salvation. And that is how one is to know which belief systems are true and which are not; for even the most inculcated Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Animists, Shintoists, Scientologists, or Mormons have some idea that what is written deep in their hearts is contrary to the things they are absorbing into themselves. Christianity, it seems to me, is the only faith which tells us the truth about the self, and the world and universe in which we live. There is one more thing to be noticed regarding this specific topic. The relativistic whisper which tempts people into this all-embracing belief system is deceiving them in a quite propitiatory way - it is carrying them away into a chamber or self-praise - into resolutions which they find it hard to allow themselves to doubt. Their conviction, what seems like a passionate striving for togetherness but is really an audacious presumption, allows them to step into provinces that were never intended for them; thus they step into the territory of the Christian or the Hindu or the Muslim and claim a parity which itself would, and does, chip away at the fundamentals of each belief system. They try to make square pegs fit in round holes, and when they can’t they end up making new holes that will take all shapes and sizes. The biggest delusion consists in the suggestion that the best way forward for those who wish to be religious is to try to unite them all; that all ambitions should be ambitions of a moral togetherness based upon spiritual heterogamy. But that is quite false. Our real union should be based, not on something disparate but on something axiomatic; you do not find truth by acceding to everyone else’s delusions or by placatory acquiescence, for to admit such a thing is to admit that man alone has all the answers; thus contradicting the original system of belief in a higher authority. The island upon which they are stranded may be starting to get a little comfortable - they may have adapted to their surroundings. But it is far more beneficial to begin building a boat in the hope of making it back to the mainland. I have said before that Christianity makes no concessions to any conflicting points of view; Christ claims that only through Him can we have salvation. Many people of different faiths find this very hard to take. Will it really make no difference whether it was Islam or Mormonism, science or megalomania, the Bahai faith or the Moonies, socialism or totalitarianism? Well surely no difference that reveals any mitigation. Whichever it is, it is not what Christ has planned for His creatures; for they have rejected the only thing that could have opened the door to Heaven for them. Even their disgust at the exclusiveness of Christianity was merely a disguised form of existentialism; a parochial endorsement of the self, it was controlled more by pride than by thoughtfulness for others. Our Lord says all of our sins can be forgiven, except the sin which these men and women who wish to compromise the Christian faith are committing - the sin against the Holy Spirit. Just as those who add their own words to the Bible really take things away from it - those who try to change religious truth to suit their own relativistic fancies are still making the fatal mistake of claming for all, that which can only be known by some. It is self-refuting - in one breath it tramples all over truth, in the next breath it claims there is nothing underfoot. Keep praying for them Charlotte. I will pray that God gives you extra strength and resources by the time you log on to read this. Yours James
	John Payne (Guest)	27/11/2007, 12:07
I've just read Martin Kentish's testimony on the page above. His first hand experience of the emotion of love just sits so neatly with James' biblical description above. I hope everyone is tuning into this.
	Charlotte (Guest)	30/11/2007, 17:00
Thank you James for your wisdom, encouragment and your thought provoking response. We are very lucky to have you. Charlotte